420WHP944

skunk,
Norway has a more extreme climatye than Ireland thats for sure! I'm using the castrol 10-60 merely because a friend of mine in porsche club Ireland can get me barrels of the stuff at rock bottom prices! My theory is that because my engine is modified the 10-60 would be better anyway for oil pressure when the engine gets very hot?

as a footnote, I'm currently in the usa working for space coast honda and i'm amazed that all their cars are run with castrol gtx 5-20, I would have thought in this hot climate they would have used a much thicker oil???????

420WHP944

jet,
The Irish climate is identical to new zealands except we are on the northern hemisphere....cheers

Zero10

Allow me to rephrase, there IS such thing as a 0WXX oil, but for a liquid to literally have 0 viscosity is impossible.

This is obviously becoming a pissing match in rather short order. I know enough to keep my own cars and their engines in excellent condition.
I do not believe that an oil with such a high viscosity rating should be run in cold weather.
That is my opinion, and I am done here.

Skunk Workz

No pissing match meant...no idea where you got that from. I merely quoted what I learnt from that testing. And,these high viscosities are for racing purposes,not everyday (short)commuting/lots of cold starts/the like,especially not in very cold conditions,which I specified in the post. My opinion is that there is no problem (other than cranking the darn thing at -20C) from running 10W60 or higher in the winter. When the engine's warm,the oil in the engine couldn't care less about the outside temps.
If I offended in any way,I'm sorry.

Zero10

The engine cares about outside temps, at least when it's REALLY cold it does.
When it's -40*C, the fins on the oil pan, and just general cooling of the block is enough to keep my oil from getting up to temp.
Even running Mobil 1 0W40 in my N/A, the oil pressure would never come down below 4 bar, even when it was plugged in, and driven for over an hour around town. And that car has both a coolant heater and an oil pan heater.

For racing only, thicker is usually better, but there are limits, maybe if I lived in california I would run a 10W60 or 20W50, but not up here. In a friend's 911, he took it out racing one weekend, with 20W50 Amsoil in the motor, after a full day of racing, he kept track of his peak oil temps (I don't recall the numbers), about 3 weeks later, he took it out again, this time with Amsoil 5W40 in it, and the oil temps were almost 20*C lower (same ambient temps (~25*C), same track, pretty much the same times, same driver, etc.). It is my belief that the 5W40 at a temp of 20*C lower will protect just as well as the 20W50 at the higher temps. I have heard several times that thicker oils will raise oil temps, and this seems to support that.

All of my oil reccomendations come as daily-driver reccomendations, not race-only engines or anything like that. I was under the impression that most of the people on this board used theirs for daily drivers, and those who do not, know enough about engine oils and their uses.

What I was saying about the pissing match, was your response to my 'you misunderstand' comment, which was not directed at you.

phils87951

Hmm if I think about it a little, thinner oil will circulate faster, there for less time to absorbe heat, makes sence, then there is also the fact that absorbing heat is one of the oils function especialy in air cooled engines.

If your oil remains within the manif. specs for temperature, then there is no problem.

In the 951, I have run Series 2000 20w50 since I got the car, I track the car exclusively (±5500 km/yr)and have yet to see a wear increase on critical components.

JET951

420whp944,

if your climate was the same as NZ i would run a 20-50. we had another 928s4 91' come in for an inspection yesterday. he drove for two hours in ****ty sydney traffic. by the time he got to our workshop, warnings came up on his dash insufficiant oil pressure. guess what he said he was running? a 5-40 syn. we didnt even do the inspection. we just told him to drive away.

Skunk Workz

Tried using cardboard to block 70-80% of the air flow to the radiator..? Usually helps it get up to temp quite a bit when it's -20C or more....

Zero10

It's not so much the airflow to the rad, but rather the airflow through the rad, that runs over the engine. I've checked, and when we hit about -25*C and below, the thermostat hardly ever opens, after about -30*C it never opens. I had considered blocking the rad, but unfortunately that car suffered an untimely death shortly after the beginning of the really cold season (january-february), and I was not able to do this. I also had a 'transmission heater' on the to-do list, since at -40*C, if I let the clutch out, the idle dropped to ~200RPM, and I couldn't make it move until it had idled for at least 20 minutes.... As for the fire, the coolant heater's thermostat failed, resulting in a very intensive engine fire. I have never seen one that bad before, neither had the fire department...

Anyhoo, that's another topic. On the golf I have for my new winter car/DD, I plan to fully block the rad. Since it's a TDI, it takes eons to warm up when it's -20*C and below, and it cools off very fast when it just sitting idling. I'll keep an eye on the temp gauge, but I suspect it will function perfectly with this setup.

420WHP944

Jet,
In your opion, would using 10-60 oil be as bad as using a light oil? or do you just consider it to be overkill?

JET951

hi 420whp944

the 60 rating may be an over kill but its the 10 im worried about 15 or 20 would be better so long as it doesnt get anywhere near as cold as what zero10 is talkin about.

951Tom

I'm glad I've been running 20w-50 Castrol gtx in my 163K mile 951 for the past 6 years. I've never done a compression test but it runs good and burns around 1/2 qt. oil every 3k miles. Most of that is probaby due to my oil pan gskt.

facboy

is there a particular oil you'd recommend for a melbourne australia climate then jet?